Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 4/Chapter 6
Chapter VI
MEIJI, OR THE ERA OF "ENLIGHTENED GOVERNMENT"
I—HISTORY
It has been shown in previous chapters that the restoration of the Throne's direct administration was the ultimate purpose of the revolution which involved the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate. But though imperialistic in its aim, the revolution may be described as democratic with regard to the personnel of its most active agents. The people indeed—that is to say, the people in the Occidental sense of the term, the mercantile, the manufacturing, and the agricultural classes—had no share in shaping the event. Their position as a part of the body politic underwent great improvement during the last two centuries of Tokugawa rule, but they nevertheless remained without spirit to assert or strength to enforce their right to a voice in the direction of State affairs. The term "democratic" is here used, therefore, in the sense that whereas all the great political vicissitudes of previous eras had been planned in the interests of some aristocratic family or eminent leader, and had been consummated by the former's kinsmen or the latter's adherents, the men that conceived and achieved the revolution of 1867 were chiefly samurai of inferior grade, without official rank or social standing. When the whole list of these agents is compiled, it is found to contain fifty-five names altogether, and among them are only thirteen aristocrats; that is to say, five territorial feudatories and eight court nobles. Nor can any of the five feudatories be said to have acted a prominent part in the movement, while of the eight nobles two alone—Iwakura and Sanjo—exercised a sensible influence on its result. The forty-two men whose spirit informed the revolution, and whose hands carried it to completion, were young samurai who, however patriotic may have been the theories they professed, must be supposed to have been largely swayed by the promptings of personal ambition. The average age of the whole fifty-five did not exceed thirty years.
But if the precedents of history were thus violated in the main, its continuity was preserved in one important respect: the Satsuma clan originally promoted the revolution, not with the intention of restoring the direct sway of the Sovereign, but with the hope of substituting for the Tokugawa administration that of their own chiefs, the Shimazu family. Satsuma had never really bowed to the authority of Yedo. If in dark days of the Tokugawa fortunes there were moments when the great southern clan showed a disposition to assist the Shogunate, it seems certain that the motive of the rapprochement was to gain the position of residuary legatee for Satsuma rather than to secure a new lease of life for Tokugawa. Doubtless some injustice would be done to the Satsuma leaders were they all included in this verdict. A few of them clearly understood that the very existence of their country in the greatly altered conditions of the time depended upon abolition of the dual system of government and unification of the nation under one sovereign. By these men, too, the councils of the clan were ultimately swayed. It may be confidently asserted, however, that the majority of their comrades originally saw in the sequel of the revolution a Satsuma Shogunate, not an Imperial administration, and that they laboured, not for the fall of military feudalism, but for its continuance under a new head. They had ostensibly abandoned that ambition before they cemented with Choshiu the alliance which assured the success of the revolution. But the sincerity of their reformed mood remained open to suspicion, and an important result is attributable to the fact. For this suspicion operated so strongly with the leaders of the revolution that, in order to provide a safeguard against all self-seeking aspirations on the part of any one clan, they asked the Emperor to publicly register a solemn oath that a broadly based deliberative assembly should be convened for the purpose of conducting State affairs in conformity with public opinion. The Emperor complied of course. A youth of sixteen, he did not think of exercising any discretion in opposition to the men that had restored him to power. It is certain that neither in the mind of His Majesty when he swore that oath nor in the hearts of his advisers when they framed it, did any conception exist of government by the people for the people. That construction grew out of events wholly unforeseen at the moment. But it is equally certain that had not the advocates of parliamentary institutions been able, in later years, to derive a mandate from the somewhat ambiguous language of the Imperial oath, the success of their agitation would have been long deferred. Thus it results that in distrust of Satsuma's aspirations is to be sought the foundation of Japanese Constitutional Government.
The necessity of abolishing feudalism and mediatising the fiefs did not enter into the original programme of the revolutionary leaders. Their sole aim was to unify the nation and place it under one supreme ruler who should administer as well as govern. The fiefs might continue to exist under such a ruler, as they had existed under the Tokugawa Shōguns. But close examination of the problem soon showed how far the practical logic of national unification must lead. Looking for models in the pages of their country's annals, the reformers found that the genuine exercise of Imperial authority had never co-existed with military feudalism, and they also discerned that, since the beginnings of trustworthy history, the only period of Practical Imperial Sovereignty had been the interval from the middle of the seventh century to the commencement of the eighth, when the great Taikwa and Taihō reforms were effected; when rulers of such eminence as Kōtoku, Tenchi, Temmu, and Mommu occupied the Throne, and when the Fujiwara usurpations had not commenced. Evidently suggestions for procedure must be taken from that epoch, and the most obvious of them was that a homogeneous and universally operative system of law should be substituted for the locally operative and somewhat heterogeneous systems of the various fiefs, and that the power of imposing taxes must be limited to the Emperor's exercise. Such measures signified the withdrawal of legislative and financial autonomy from the feudatories. It was a radical change. Each feudal chief had hitherto enjoyed the right of collecting the revenues of his fief and applying them to whatever purposes he desired, on the sole condition of maintaining a certain minimum force of soldiers for State service. He had also enjoyed the right of enacting and enforcing whatever laws he pleased, on the sole condition that disorder must be prevented in the territory over which he ruled. He had, in fact, been a local autocrat. Now, however, if the era of Imperial sovereignty was to be restored on the old lines, the feudal chiefs must be deprived of those powers. The necessity was plain, but how could the feudatories be constrained to recognise it? No strength existed capable of coercing them. Each of the great political changes in Japan had hitherto been preceded by a war that culminated in the elevation of some clan to a position from which it could dictate terms to all the rest. There had been no corresponding sequence of events in the present case. No clan had asserted its right to replace the Tokugawa, nor would any such assertion have been tolerated by the other clans. The active authors of the revolution were a small band of samurai mainly without prestige or territorial influence, and though they might have had recourse to an Imperial mandate, it must have been evident to them that the issue of a mandate stripping the feudatories of their autocratic privileges when the means of enforcing it were obviously absent, would have been a reckless experiment. Thus, in a word, the leaders of the revolution found that their programme of national unification must be prosecuted by persuasion, not by compulsion. The exit they contrived from this dilemma is one of the most striking incidents of the revolutionary drama. They induced the feudal chiefs of Satsuma, Chōshiu, Tosa, and Hizen, now the four most powerful clans in the empire, to publicly surrender their fiefs to the sovereign, accompanying the surrender with a prayer for reorganisation under a uniform systern of law. The example thus set by the four great barons produced an epidemic of imitation. Out of the two hundred and seventy-six feudatories then borne on the feudal role, only seventeen failed to make a similar surrender.
A more picturesque incident could scarcely be conceived, nor one less consistent with the course that human experience would have anticipated. Here and there in the pages of history may be found names of men memorable for patriotic altruism, but nowhere can be found another instance of such a wholesale spirit of self-sacrifice as that displayed by the feudal chiefs of Japan. It is difficult to analyse the motives that swayed them. In the case of Shimazu, Daimyō of Satsuma, and Yodo, Daimyō of Tosa, the act must be frankly placed to the credit of noble patriotism. These were men of intellect and ambition. The exercise of power had been a reality to them, and the pain of surrendering it must have been correspondingly keen. But their coadjutors, the chiefs of Chōshiu and Hizen, obeyed the suggestions of their principal vassals with little if any appreciation of the probable cost of obedience. The same remark applies to all the other feudatories with rare exceptions. Long accustomed to abandon the management of their fiefs to seneschals and leading clansmen, they followed the familiar guidance at this crisis without serious thought of consequences. The great majority of them, indeed, were so little conversant with practical issues that they had no capacity to understand the events of the time. No such explanation presents itself, however, in the case of the samurai of the various fiefs. The clan had always been the first object of their interest and fealty. Their honour was concerned in upholding it, and upon its preservation depended their means of livelihood. That these men should have quietly acquiesced in the surrender of legislative and financial autonomy by their chiefs, was very remarkable. An explanation has been sought in the suggestion that when the clansmen advised or endorsed a course seemingly so opposed to traditional principles and worldly wisdom, they obeyed the promptings of personal ambition, believing that they themselves would find greater opportunities and a wider field under the new regimen. Some such anticipation may not unreasonably be assumed, and was ultimately realised, in the case of the leading samurai of the four southern clans which led the movement. But no forecast of the kind can have been generally operative. The great bulk of the clansmen must have comprehended that to strip the clan of power was to relegate its vassals to comparative insignificance. Probably the true explanation is to be sought in a sphere of higher motives than those usually underlying human actions. The step taken by the four southern clans indicated a course in striking harmony with the spirit of the Restoration,—a course all the more attractive in the eyes of the samurai since to adopt it involved a heavy sacrifice on the altar of loyalty to the Throne. It had so long been the bushi's habit to associate great deeds with some form of self-immolation that he had learned to regard the latter as a kind of finger-post to the former. There might have been some uncertainty about the initial step, but so soon as that was taken by the southern clans, their example acquired compelling force. History shows that the romantic element occupies a prominent place in Japanese character, and that the educated classes can always be led into feverish pursuit of an ideal which appeals to their sense of moral nobility. The atmosphere was full of loyalty and patriotism in 1869. The mood of the nation was exalted. Anyone hesitating, for plainly selfish reasons, to follow a course apparently essential to the new order of things and sanctioned by the example of the great southern clans, would have seemed to forfeit the right of calling himself a samurai.
Although there cannot have been any doubt now in the minds of the leaders of the revolutionary movement that they would not be able to stop short of the total abolition of feudalism, they appreciated that it would be necessary to advance cautiously towards a goal which still lay beyond the range of their followers' vision. They sought, therefore, to preserve the semblance
of the old institution after its reality had ceased 
Blacksmiths and Wheelwrights.
to exist. Therefore, after the surrender of the autonomy of the fiefs, the feudatories were appointed to act as governors in the districts where they had formerly ruled, and the samurai were confirmed in their incomes and official positions. Each governor was to receive annually one-tenth of the revenue of the fief; the pay of the samurai and of the officials was to be taken from the same source, and the residue, if any, was to be passed into the treasury of the central Government. At the same time the distinction of "Court nobles" (kuge) and "military nobles" (buke) was abolished. There had been no such differentiation in ante-feudal days. To those days also the reformers went for models of ministerial organisation. They formed a government consisting of seven departments,—religion, home affairs, foreign affairs, finance, army and navy, justice and law,—and at its head they placed a premier, who must be an Imperial Prince, and a vice-premier, the Cabinet being assisted by a body of eighteen councillors, who, including in their ranks the most active spirits of the revolution, exercised great influence.
It is plain that what had been thus far accomplished towards the abolition of military feudalism was nominal in a large degree. The Throne had not recovered the power of either the purse or the sword, for although the fiefs (han) had been converted into prefectures (ken), their revenues continued to be collected and disbursed by the former feudatories in their new capacity of governors, who also retained the control of the only available troops, the samurai, and exercised the right of appointing and discussing officials in their districts.
The reformers pursued their purpose steadily. Having recourse once more to the device of persuasion, they contrived that several of the administrative districts, that is to say, the former fiefs, should petition the Throne for permission to surrender their local autonomy and to pass under the direct rule of the central Government. No immediate action was taken, however, in the sense of these petitions: their suggestive influence upon the public mind was left to mature.
Meanwhile the samurai presented a still more serious obstacle to political progress. Their differentiation from the farmers to whose ranks they originally belonged and their elevation into an independent class had been essentially a feudal development. They might indeed be regarded as the basis of the feudal system, for without them its existence would have been impossible. Hence their abolition as a body of hereditary soldiers and officials and their re-absorption into the mass of the people were even more necessary than the mediatisation of the fiefs. Here, too, the same method of procedure by suggestion was adopted. A number of the samurai were persuaded to seek Imperial sanction for laying aside their swords and reverting to agriculture.
At this stage the leaders of the revolution found their own cohesion threatened. Shimazu Saburo, ex-Daimyō of Satsuma, took umbrage because the services of his clan in promoting the overthrow of the Shōgun and the restoration of Imperial administration had not been more fully recognised. This was the chieftain whose name had once been execrated by foreigners because of the killing of Richardson by samurai of his cortège at Namamugi, near Yokohama, on the Tokaido, and because of the subsequent bombardment of his capital, Kagoshima, by a British squadron. He held, not without justice, that the coöperation of the great fief over which he ruled had been absolutely essential to the success of the revolution, and that the place of its representatives in the new administration ought to be correspondingly prominent. Had he remained obdurate, Japan's political progress might have been arrested. But he consented reluctantly to accept for himself an office second only to that of Premier, and a serious danger was averted for the moment. This incident gave prominence to the question of clan claims, and led to such a reconstitution of the Ministry that each of the four great clans, Satsuma, Chōshiu, Hizen, and Tosa, was equally represented. Thus, for the first time, the principle of clan representation received practical recognition in the organisation of the Government. It continued to be recognised for many years, and ultimately became the chief target of attack for party politicians.
Another important arrangement effected at this time was that each of the above four clans should send to Tōkyō, whither the Imperial Court had been transferred, a contingent of troops to form the nucleus of a national army, a partial reversion being thus made to the remote era when the Imperial Court exercised military authority.
Nearly four years had now passed since the fall of the Tokugawa, and the Government, reassured as to the measure of support it might expect from the great feudatories, advised the Emperor to issue an edict announcing the complete abolition of the system of local autonomy and the removal of the territorial chiefs from the post of prefectural governor. This memorable decree was promulgated on August 29, 1871. Its further provisions were that the revenues of the former fiefs were thenceforth to be paid into the central treasury; that the appointment and dismissal of all officials were to be within the prerogatives of the Imperial Government; and that the feudal chiefs, retaining permanently one-tenth of their original incomes, were to make Tōkyō their place of residence. The samurai, however, were left in possession of their hereditary pensions and allowances and were not otherwise disturbed.
The mediatisation of the fiefs was now complete; the feudatories had disappeared from the body politic, and the Emperor had recovered the full power of the purse. Such sweeping changes might have been expected to cause considerable commotion. But they were accomplished with little disturbance, first, because the way had been skilfully prepared for them; secondly, because those mainly affected by them had some compensations; and thirdly, because the samurai, without whose coöperation no disaffection could be serious, remained in full possession of their emoluments, and found nothing irksome to themselves in the new arrangement. As to the second of these reasons, it has to be explained that although the former feudal chiefs, deprived of their official status and reduced to the position of private gentlemen without even a patent of nobility to distinguish them from their old vassals and retainers, seemed to have received a stunning blow, they did not in truth find their altered positions and circumstances intolerably painful. To be suddenly stripped of official and military authority which had been exercised by their families for centuries, could not fail to be a bitter experience. But, on the other hand, possession of such authority had been merely nominal in the great majority of cases, since the seneschals (karo) had grasped its substance, leaving the shadow only to their masters. Thus what was expunged from the lives of these feudal autocrats had not bulked largely in their existence, and their regret at parting with it must have been in some degree tempered by a sense of relief from responsibility. Besides, no scrutiny was made into the contents of their treasuries at the moment of mediatisation. They were allowed to remain in unquestioned possession of the accumulated funds of their former fiefs at the same time that they became public creditors for annual allowances equal to one-tenth of their feudal revenues. From a pecuniary point of view they had never been better situated, for the charges on the incomes of their fiefs under the old system must have exceeded the amount of the reduction now effected. Yet even when all these allowances are made, the cup that the ex-Daimyōs were required to drink certainly contained a very solid residuum of bitterness, and that they swallowed it patiently is one of the most remarkable events in the history of any nation.
So long, however, as the samurai remained a distinct class with special privileges, feudalism could not be said to have disappeared. They were the country's only soldiers. Some of their incomes were for life alone, but the great majority were hereditary, and all were based on the fact that their holders devoted themselves to military service only. Four hundred thousand men were in receipt of such emoluments, and the annual charge to the State on their account aggregated about two million pounds sterling. The nation began to feel that the burden could not be borne permanently. On the other hand, that these men and their families—a total of some two million persons—should be suddenly deprived of means of subsistence on which they had hitherto confidently relied and which had been earned by the brave deeds of their forefathers, would have been an act of shocking inhumanity. Against such a solution of the problem public opinion would certainly have rebelled, not the less vehemently because the samurai themselves showed a noble disposition to bow to the necessity of the time. There was much to be said in favour of these men. If the privileges they enjoyed had become anomalous, it could not be denied that they gave loyal service in return, and that their lives exemplified all the qualities most prized among Japanese characteristics. Historical records and national recognition entitled them to look for sympathetic treatment at the hands of the Government, which, for the rest, they had been instrumental in setting up and whose leading spirits belonged to their order. Yet it is certain that the incongruity be- tween their position and the changing times was not altogether hidden from the samurai by selfish considerations. Many of them, seeing that no place existed for them in the new polity, voluntarily stepped down into the company of the peasant or the merchant, and many others signified their willingness to join the ranks of common bread-winners if some small aid were given to equip them for such a career.
The Government, having suffered this leaven of resignation and conviction to work during nearly six years, took a resolute step in 1873. A decree announced that the Treasury was prepared to commute the pensions of the samurai on the basis of six years' purchase for hereditary pensions and four years' for life pensions; one-half of the commutation to be paid in cash and one-half in bonds bearing interest at the rate of eight per cent. This meant that the holder of a perpetual pension of a hundred pounds might receive a ready-money sum of three hundred pounds provided that he agreed to have his pension reduced to twenty-four pounds, and that the holder of a life pension of the same amount could obtain cash to the extent of two hundred pounds and a perpetual pension of sixteen pounds. This commutation was not compulsory; the samurai were free to avail themselves of the proposal or to reject it. Incredible as the fact may seem, many of them accepted the offer. Possibly want of business knowledge impaired the judgment of some, possibly an apprehension that if they turned their backs on the proposal, worse terms might ultimately be thrust on them without the grace of option, influenced the action of others. But the general explanation appears to be that they made a large sacrifice in the interests of their country. Nothing in all their career as soldiers became these men better than their manner of abandoning it. Told that to lay aside their swords would facilitate their country's progress, many of them did so, though from time immemorial they had cherished the sword as the mark, of a gentleman, the most precious possession of a warrior, and the one outward evidence that distinguished their order from common bread-earners. Deprived of their military employment, invited to surrender more than one-half of the income attached to it, and knowing themselves unprepared alike by education and by tradition to win a livelihood in any calling save that of arms, they nevertheless bowed their heads quietly to these sharp reverses of fortune at the invitation of a government which they had helped to establish. It was assuredly a striking example of the fortitude and resignation which the creed of the samurai required him to display in the presence of adversity. But the problem was only partially solved. Those that rejected the Government's commutation scheme and continued to wear their swords greatly outnumbered those that accepted the former and laid aside the latter.
Differences of opinion had in the mean while begun to impair the collective competence of the leaders of progress themselves. Coalitions formed for destructive purposes often prove unable to support the strain of constructive effort. Some lack of cohesion could scarcely fail to develop itself among the Japanese reformers. Young men without any experience of State affairs or any special education to fit them for responsible posts, they were suddenly required to undertake the duty not only of devising executive and fiscal systems universally applicable to a nation hitherto divided into a congeries of semi-independent principalities, but also of shaping the country's demeanour towards novel problems of foreign intercourse and alien civilisation. So long as the heat of their assault upon the Tokugawa Shogunate fused them into a homogeneous whole, they worked together successfully. But when, emerging from the storm and stress of the conflict, they had to enter the council chamber and draw plans for the construction of a brand-new political edifice on the partial ruins of a still vividly recent past, it was inevitable that their opinions should vary as to the architectural scheme and the nature of the materials to be employed. In this divergence of views, which will be illustrated by the course of succeeding events, many of the capital incidents of Japan's modern history had their origin.
It has been stated above that the declaration which the young Emperor was invited to make on assuming the reins of government, included a promise constructively pointing to a representative polity, and that the promise was suggested by the mutual jealousy of the planners of the Restoration rather than by any sincere desire for parliamentary institutions. A few zealous reformers may have wished to follow, in this respect, the example of the foremost Occidental nations; but an overwhelming majority of the statesmen of the time thought only of a system which, by securing to all the clans a share of administrative authority, would prevent the undue preponderance of any one of them. It need scarcely be repeated that the military class alone entered into this account. A "national assembly" was regarded solely as an instrument for eliciting the views of the samurai. Two such assemblies actually did meet in the years immediately following the Restoration. But they were nothing more than debating clubs. No legislative power was entrusted to them, and their opinions received little official attention. After the second fiasco they were tacitly allowed to pass out of existence. Everything, indeed, goes to show that representative government might have long remained outside the range of practical politics had not its uses derived vicarious value from special complications.
Chief among those complications was the Korean question. The story of Japan's relations with Korea, though dating from very remote times and including several memorable incidents, may be epitomised here into a statement that from the sixteenth century, when the peninsula kingdom was overrun by Japanese troops under Hideyoshi's generals, its rulers made a habit of sending a present-bearing embassy to felicitate the accession of each Japanese Shōgun. But after the fall of the Tokugawa Government, the Korean Court desisted from the custom, declared its determination to have no further relations with a country embracing Western civilisation, and refused even to receive a Japanese embassy.
Naturally such conduct roused deep umbrage in Japan. It constituted a verdict that whereas the old Japan had been entitled to the respect and homage of neighbouring Powers, the new might be treated with contumely.
At the time when this defiance was flung in Japan's teeth, some friction had been developed among the leaders of national reform. Of the fifty-five men whose united efforts had compassed the fall of the Shogunate, five stood conspicuous above their colleagues. They were Iwakura and Sanjo, Court nobles; Saigo and Okubo, samurai, of Satsuma; and Kido, a samurai of Chōshiu. In the second rank came many men of great gifts, whose youth alone disqualified them for prominence,—Ito, the constructive statesman of the Meiji era, who inspired nearly all the important measures of the time, though he did not at first openly figure as their originator; Inouye, who never lacked a resource, was never dismayed by an obstacle, nor ever swerved from the dictates of loyalty; Okuma, a politician of the most subtle, versatile, and vigorous intellect; Itagaki, the Rousseau of his era, and a score of others called to the surface by the extraordinary circumstances with which they had to deal. But the five first mentioned were the captains; the rest, only lieutenants. Among the five, four were sincere reformers; not free, of course, from selfish motives, but truthfully bent upon promoting the interests of their country before all other aims. The fifth, Saigo Takamori, was a man in whom boundless ambition lay concealed under qualities of the noblest and most endearing type. His absolute freedom from every trace of sordidness gave currency to a belief that his objects were of the simplest; the story of his career satisfied the highest canons of the samurai; his massive physique, commanding presence, and sunny aspect impressed and attracted even those who had no opportunity of admiring his life of self-sacrificing effort or appreciating the remarkable military talent he possessed. In the first years of his career, the object of his ambition was Satsuma; in the later years, Saigo. The overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate presented itself to him originally as a prelude to the supremacy of the Satsuma clan, and when the abolition of feudalism defeated that purpose, Satsuma assumed in his eyes the guise of Saigo. Whether he clearly recognised his own project or was unconsciously swayed by it, there is no doubt that he looked to become supreme in the administration of State affairs. To that end the preservation of the military class was essential. By the swords of the samurai alone could a new imperium in imperio be carved out. On the other hand, Saigo's colleagues in the Ministry saw clearly not only that the samurai were an unwarrantable burden on the nation, but also that their continued existence after the fall of feudalism would be a menace to public peace as well as an anomaly. Therefore they took the steps already described, and followed them by enacting a conscription law, making every adult male liable for military service without regard to his social standing.
It is easy to conceive how painfully unwelcome this conscription law proved to the samurai. Many of them were not unwilling to commute their pensions, since their creed had always forbidden them to care for money and since patriotism demanded the sacrifice. Many of them were not unwilling to abandon the habit of carrying swords, since the adoption of foreign costume rendered such a custom incongruous and inconvenient and since it was out of touch with the times. But very few could readily consent to step down from their cherished position as the military class, and relinquish their traditional title to bear the whole responsibility and enjoy the whole honour of fighting their country's battles. They had supposed, not unreasonably, that service in the army and navy would be reserved exclusively for them and their sons, whereas now the commonest rustic, mechanic, or tradesman would be equally eligible. On the other hand, conscription having been the basis of the country's military system in the days of Imperial rule which the reformers sought to restore, they would naturally have been anxious to revert to that method of raising an army, even though they had not appreciated that such a measure would ring the knell of the samurai class.
While the pain of this blow was still fresh, the question of Korea's contumacious conduct presented itself. It produced an immediate and violent disruption in the ranks of the little band of reformers. Saigo saw in a foreign war the sole remaining chance of achieving his ambition by lawful means. The Government's conscription scheme, yet in its infancy, had not produced even the skeleton of an army. If Korea had to be conquered, the samurai must be employed, and their employment would mean, if not their rehabilitation, at least their organisation into a force which, under Saigo's leadership, might dictate a new polity. Other members of the Cabinet believed that the nation would be disgraced if it tamely endured Korea's insults. Thus several influential voices swelled the clamour for war. But a peace party offered strenuous opposition. Its members perceived the collateral issues of the problem, and declared that the country must not think of taking up arms during a period of radical transition. The final discussion took place in the Emperor's presence. Probably none of those engaged in it understood the whole scope of its national significance, or perceived that they were debating, not merely whether there should be peace or war, but whether the country should halt or advance on its newly adopted path of progress. The peace party prevailed, and four members of the Cabinet, including Saigo, resigned.
This rupture was destined to have far-reaching consequences. One of the seceders, Yeto Shimpei, immediately raised the standard of revolt. Among the devices employed by him to win adherents was an attempt to fan into flame the dying embers of the anti-foreign sentiment. The Government crushed his insurrection easily. Another seceder was Itagaki Taisuke. He believed in representative institutions, and advocated the establishment of a national assembly consisting half of officials and half of public nominees. His views, premature and visionary, obtained no currency at the moment, but in later years became the shibboleth of a great political party. They need not be referred to here further than to note that at the time when Itagaki advocated this reform, the idea of popular representation can scarcely have been present in his mind. The people did not yet exist in a political sense.
Saigo, the most prominent of the seceders, seems to have concluded from that moment that he must abandon his aims or achieve them by force. He retired to his native province of Satsuma, and applied his whole resources, his great reputation, and the devoted loyalty of a number of able followers to organising and equipping a strong body of samurai. Matters were facilitated for him by the conservatism of the celebrated Shimazu Saburo, former chief of Satsuma, who, though not opposed to foreign intercourse, had been revolted by the wholesale iconoclasm of the time and by the indiscriminate rejection of Japanese customs in favour of foreign. He protested vehemently against what seemed to him a slavish abandonment of the nation's individuality, and, finding his protest fruitless, set himself to preserve, in his own distant province, where the writ of the Yedo Government had never run, the fashions, institutions, and customs which his former colleagues in the Administration were ruthlessly rejecting. Satsuma thus became a centre of conservative influences, among which Saigo and his constantly augmenting band of samurai found a congenial environment.
During four years this breach between the central Government and the southern clan grew constantly wider. The former steadily organised its conscripts, trained them in foreign tactics, and equipped them wholly with foreign arms. The latter adopted the rifle and the drill of Europe, but clung to the sword of the samurai, and engaged ceaselessly in exercises for developing physical power.
Many things happened in that four-year interval; among them a military expedition to Formosa, which led Japan to the verge of war with China. The ostensible cause of this complication was the barbarous treatment of castaways from Riukiu by Formosan aborigines. Upon the Chinese Government properly devolved the duty of punishing its subjects, the Formosans. But as the Chinese Government showed no inclination to discharge the duty, Japan took the law into her own hands. She would never have done so, however, had she not hoped to placate thereby the Satsuma samurai. The Riukiu islands had been for centuries an appanage of the Satsuma fief, and the Government, in undertaking to protect the islanders, not only showed consideration for the discontented clan, but also acceded to the samurai's wish for an over-sea campaign. From a military point of view the expedition was successful. But little glory was to be gained by shooting down the semi-savage inhabitants of Formosa, and, whatever potentialities the expedition might have possessed with regard to domestic politics were marred by the bad grace shown in undertaking it and by the feebleness of its international issue. For on the very eve of the sailing of the transports that carried the expeditionary force, the Tōkyō Government, swayed by foreign councils, had sought to arrest the departure of the vessels, thus dissociating itself from the enterprise. And after the troops had done their part expeditiously and thoroughly, the same Government sent an ambassador to Peking with instructions to contrive a peaceful solution under all circumstances, thus losing credit with the samurai whom it had hoped to placate.
A year after the return of the Formosa expedition, that is to say, at the close of 1875, the Koreans completed their rupture with Japan by firing on the boats of a Japanese war-vessel engaged in the peaceful operation of coast-surveying. No choice now remained except to despatch an armed expedition against the truculent kingdom. In this matter Japan showed herself an apt pupil of Occidental methods, such as had been practised against herself in former years. She assembled an imposing force of warships and transports, but instead of proceeding to extremities, she employed the squadron—which was by no means so strong as it seemed—to intimidate Korea into signing a treaty of amity and commerce and opening three ports to foreign trade. That was the beginning of Korea's friendly relations with the outer world, and Japan naturally took credit for the fact that, thus early in her new career, she had become an instrument for extending the principle of universal intercourse opposed so strenuously by herself in the past. But the incident only accentuated the dissatisfaction of the conservative samurai. They did not want treaties of commerce, and they held it a national humiliation that the country should have negotiated on equal terms with a little State which they regarded as a tributary and which acknowledged China as its suzerain.
It was at this stage that the Government deemed itself strong enough to adopt extreme measures with regard to the samurai. Three years previously the wearing of swords had been declared optional and a scheme of voluntary commutation had been announced. Many had bowed quietly to the spirit of these enactments. But many still wore their swords and drew their pensions as of old, obstructing, in the former respect, the Government's projects for the reorganisation of society, and imposing, in the latter, an intolerable burden on the resources of the Treasury. The Ministry judged that the time had come, and that its own strength sufficed, to substitute compulsion for persuasion. Two edicts were issued,—one vetoing the wearing of swords, the other ordering the commutation of the pensions and allowances received by the samurai and the former feudal chiefs.
The financial measure—which was contrived so as to affect the smallest pension-holders least injuriously—evoked no open complaint, what- ever secret dissatisfaction it may have caused. The samurai remained faithful to the creed which forbade them to be concerned about money. But the veto against sword-wearing overtaxed the patience of the extreme conservatives. It seemed to them that all the most honoured traditions of their country were being ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of alien innovations. Armed protests ensued. A few scores of samurai, equipping themselves with the hauberks and weapons of old times, attacked a castle, killed or wounded some three hundred of the garrison, and then, retiring to an adjacent mountain, died by their own hands. Their example found imitators in two other places, and finally the Satsuma samurai rose in arms under Saigo.
This was an insurrection very different in dimensions and motives from the paltry outbreaks that had preceded it. During four years the preparations of the Satsuma men had been unremitting. They were well equipped with rifles and cannon; they numbered some thirty thousand, being thus nearly as numerous as the Government's standing army; they were all of the military class, and in addition to high training in Western tactics and in the use of modern arms of precision, they knew how to wield that formidable weapon, the Japanese sword, of which their opponents were for the most part ignorant. Ostensibly their object was to restore the samurai to their old supremacy, and to secure for them all the posts in the army, the navy, and the administration. But although they doubtless entertained that intention, it was put forward mainly with the hope of winning the coöperation of the military class in all parts of the Empire. The real purpose of the revolt was to secure the governing power for Satsuma. A bitter struggle ensued. Beginning on January 29, 1877, it was brought to a close on September 24 of the same year, by the death, voluntary or in battle, of all the rebel leaders. During that period the number of men engaged on the Government's side had been sixty-six thousand, and the number on the side of the rebels forty thousand, out of which total the killed and wounded aggregated thirty-five thousand, or thirty-three per cent of the whole. Had the Government's troops been finally defeated, there can be no doubt that the samurai's exclusive title to man and direct the army and navy would have been reestablished, and that Japan would have found herself permanently saddled with a military class, heavily burdening her finances, seriously impeding her progress towards constitutional government, and perpetuating all the abuses incidental to a polity in which the power of the sword rests entirely in the hands of one section of the people. The nation scarcely appreciated the great issues that were at stake. It found more interest in the struggle as furnishing a conclusive test of the efficiency of the new military system compared with the old. The army sent to quell the insurrection consisted of recruits drawn indiscriminately from every class of the people. Viewed by the light of history, it was an army of commoners, deficient in the fighting instinct and traditionally demoralised for all purposes of resistance to the military class. The Satsuma insurgents, on the contrary, represented the flower of the samurai, long trained for this very struggle and led by men whom the nation regarded as its bravest captains. The result dispelled all doubts about the fighting quality of the people at large. Such doubts ought not, indeed, to have been seriously entertained, for the samurai were not racially distinguished from the bulk of the nation: they had emerged originally from the agricultural class, and they could claim no special military aptitude except such as had been educated by training or encouraged by tradition. Yet of all the radical changes introduced during the Meiji era none was regarded with such misgivings by the Japanese themselves as the disbanding of the samurai army, soldiers by birth, by profession, and by heredity, and the substitution of an army of conscripts taken from the manufacturing, tradal, and agricultural classes who were believed to be entirely deficient in all military qualities. The Satsuma rebellion seemed to have been contrived by fate expressly to confirm or dispel these misgivings, and its result did more than can readily be described to establish the nation's faith in the new regimen.
II—POLITICS
Concurrently with the events relating to the fall of feudalism, which, for the sake of lucidity, have been collected in the preceding section into a continuous narrative, the Imperial Government spared no effort to equip Japan with all the paraphernalia of Western civilisation. Under any circumstances it would have been natural that the master-minds of the era, the men who had planned and carried out the great work of the Restoration, should lead the nation along all paths of progress. Their intellectual superiority entitled them to act as guides, and they had enjoyed exceptional opportunities of acquiring enlightenment by visits to Europe and America. But there were special considerations also. The Japanese people had long been in the habit of looking to the official class for all initiative. The term "official class" is, indeed, somewhat misleading in this context. "Educated class" would be a more accurate form of expression, for the samurai, who filled all the official posts, stood in that relation to the bulk of the nation. Readers of these pages are aware, further, that the character of the Government throughout the whole of the Tokugawa era had been essentially parental. Men had been taught to adjust their most trivial doings to the provisions of rules and regulations, and they had been further taught to abhor the very civilisation which it was now expedient they should adopt. Unprepared, on the one hand, to think and act for themselves, they were prepared, on the other, to think and act wrongly. The Government, therefore, did what was wise and right when it applied itself strenuously to push the nation into the desired path. To foreign onlookers, however, the spectacle thus presented was not without disquieting suggestions, for not only did they doubt the permanent strength of official leading strings, but also it seemed to them that the Government's reforms outstripped the nation's readiness for them, and that the results wore an air of some artificiality and confusion. But the Government never faltered. Its confidence remained unshaken by any predictions of danger, and its energy defied any obstacles. Englishmen were employed to superintend the building of railways, the erection of telegraphs, the construction of light-houses, and the organisation of a navy. To Frenchmen was entrusted the work of recasting the laws and training the army in strategy and tactics. Educational affairs, the organisation of a postal service, the improvement of agriculture, and the work of colonisation were supervised by Americans. The teaching of medical science, the compilation of a commercial code, the elaboration of a system of local government, and ultimately the training of military officers were assigned to Germans. For instruction in sculpture and painting Italians were engaged. In short, the Japanese undertook, in the most light-hearted manner possible, to dress themselves in clothes such as they had never worn before and which had been made to fit other people. The spectacle looked strange enough to justify the apprehensions of foreign critics, who asked whether it was possible that so many novelties should be successfully assimilated, or that a nation should adapt itself to systems planned by a motley band of aliens who knew nothing of its character or customs.
The truth is, however, that conservatism was not really required to make such sweeping sacrifices as appearances suggested. The inner life of the people remained unchanged. Perhaps the abandonment of the queue was the only irrevocable concession to the new fashion. Men were laughed out of that appendage by a clever rhymester, who sang that taps on a tonsured pate produced the sound of a cheap gourd, whereas from a full-haired head they elicited notes of progress and enlightenment! However ardently a statesman advocated the new regimen, he showed his affection for the old by leading a dual existence. During hours of duty he wore a fine uniform shaped and decorated in foreign style. But so soon as he stepped out of office or off parade, he reverted to his own comfortable and picturesque costume. Handsome houses were built and furnished according to Western models; but each had an annex where alcoves, verandahs, matted floors, and paper sliding-doors continued to do traditional duty. Beef-steaks, beer, "grape-wine," knives and forks came into use on occasion; but rice-bowls and chopsticks held their every-day place as of old. In a word, though the Japanese adopted every convenient and serviceable attribute of foreign civilisation, such as railways, steamships, telegraphs, post-offices, banks, and machinery of all kinds; though they accepted Occidental sciences and, to a large extent, Occidental philosophies; though they recognised the superiority of European jurisprudence and set themselves to bring their laws into accord with it,—they nevertheless preserved the essentials of their own mode of life and never lost their individuality. A remarkable spirit of liberalism and a fine eclectic instinct were needed for the part they acted, but they did no radical violence to their own traditions, creeds, and conventions.
There was indeed a certain element of incongruity and even grotesqueness in the nation's doings. Old people cannot fit their feet to new grooves without some clumsiness. The Japanese had grown very old in their special paths, and their novel departure was occasionally disfigured by solecisms. The refined taste that guided them unerringly in all the affairs of life as they had been accustomed to live it, seemed to fail them signally when they emerged into an alien atmosphere. But it will be seen, when the results of their various efforts come to be considered in detail, that the apparently excessive rapidity of their progress did not overtax their capacities, and that there is no prospect of their newly adopted civilisation's proving unsuited to them. The often expressed fear that they would turn back and retrace their steps, is proved to be quite chimerical.
After the failure of the Satsuma rebellion had extinguished the last smouldering embers of military feudalism, the only question that disturbed Japan's domestic politics was the manner of distributing the administrative power. One of the lessons taught by Japanese history is that representative institutions are in the genius of the nation. At a very early era the sovereign ceased to be autocratic, or to retain any prerogative which might be exercised without the concurrence of his principal subjects. The highest offices of the State became hereditary possessions of certain great families, and as generation succeeded generation each unit of this oligarchy of households attained the dimensions of a clan, so that administrative functions may be said to have been exercised by groups, not by individuals. Subsequently the exigencies of the time gave birth to a military aristocracy headed by a generalissimo (Shōgun), into whose hands administrative authority passed. But even in this military feudalism no traces of genuine autocracy were found. Just as the extensive power, nominally vested in the central figure, the Shōgun, were in reality wielded by a large body of ministers and councillors, so the local autonomy enjoyed by each fief was exercised, not by the chief him- self, but by his leading vassals. A united effort on the part of all the clans to overthrow this system and wrest the administrative power from the Shōgun could have only one logical outcome, the combined exercise of the recovered power by those that had been instrumental in recovering it. That was the meaning of the oath taken by the Emperor at the Restoration, when the youthful sovereign was made to say that "wide counsels should be sought, and all things determined by public discussion." But the framers of the oath had the samurai alone in view. Into their consideration the "common people"—farmers, mechanics, tradesmen—did not enter at all, nor had the common people themselves any idea of advancing a claim to be considered. A voice in the administration would have been to them an embarrassment rather than a privilege. It is true that among the people too—the "commoners" of feudal times—representative principles had long been operative. Their headmen, their elders, and their "five-men groups" had stood between them and the repository of supreme authority, assuming their responsibilities and discharging their public duties. Such functions, however, were limited to parochial and domestic affairs. Farmers, artisans, and traders had no concern whatever with State business, nor ever gave a thought to it. Had they been invited to assume a share in the Government after the fall of feudalism, they would have declined the offer with something like consternation.
Thus the first deliberative assembly convened in accordance with the sovereign's pledge was composed of nobles and samurai only, nor did its composition provoke criticism in any quarter. It accomplished nothing, being in truth a mere debating club, not invested with any legislative authority whatever. Two sessions sufficed to bring it into ridicule, and it was dissolved amid public jeers.
Possibly the parliamentary problem might have passed out of the nation's sight for a time after that fiasco, had it not been ardently taken up by Itagaki Taisuke. This politician has already been spoken of as the Rousseau of Japan. A Tosa samurai he had figured prominently in the Restoration movement, and though his views about parliaments, personal liberty, and popular representation indicated a visionary and unpractical mind, his unmistakable earnestness, his integrity, and his unselfish devotion to any cause he espoused, gave him much influence. When the question of Korea's contumacy came up for discussion in 1873, Itagaki was among the advocates of recourse to strong measures, and his failure to carry his point, supplemented by a belief that a large section of public opinion would have supported him had there been any machinery for appealing to it, gave fresh impetus to his faith in constitutional government. Leaving the Cabinet on account of the Korean question, he became the nucleus of agitation in favour of a parliamentary system, and under his banner were enrolled not only discontented samurai, but also many young men who, returning from direct observation of the working of constitutional systems in Europe or America, and failing to obtain official posts in Japan, attributed their failure to the oligarchical form of their country's polity. Thus in the interval between 1873 and 1877 there were two centres of disturbance in Japan,—one in Satsuma, where Saigo figured as leader; the other in Tosa, under Itagaki's guidance. When the Satsuma men appealed to arms in 1877, a widespread apprehension prevailed lest the Tosa politicians should throw in their lot with the insurgents. Such a fear had its origin in failure to understand the object of the one side or to appreciate the sincerity of the other. Saigo and his adherents fought to substitute a Satsuma clique for the oligarchy already in power. Itagaki and his followers struggled for constitutional institutions. The two could not have anything in common. There was consequently no coalition. But the Tosa agitators did not neglect to make capital out of the embarrassment caused by the Satsuma rebellion. While the struggle was at its height, they addressed to the Government a memorial charging the administration with oppressive measures to restrain the voice of public opinion; with usurpation of power to the exclusion of the nation at large, and with levelling downward instead of upward, since the samurai had been reduced to the rank of commoners, whereas the commoners should have been educated to the standard of the samurai. This memorial asked for a representative assembly and talked of popular rights. But since the document admitted that the people were uneducated, it is plain that there cannot have been any serious idea of giving them an immediate share in the administration. In fact, the Tosa liberals were not really contending for popular representation in the full sense of the term. What they wanted was the creation of some machinery for securing to the samurai at large a voice in the management of State affairs. They chafed against the fact that whereas the efforts and sacrifices demanded by the Restoration had fallen equally on the whole military class, the official prizes under the resulting system were monopolised by a small coterie of men belonging to the four principal clans. It is on record that Itagaki would have been content originally with an assembly consisting half of officials, half of non-official samurai, and not including any popular element whatever.
But the Government did not believe that the time had come for even such a measure as the Tosa liberals advocated. The statesmen in power conceived that the nation must be educated up to constitutional standards, and that the first step should be to provide an official model. Accordingly, in 1874, arrangements were made for periodically convening an assembly of prefectural governors, in order that they might act as channels of communication between the central authorities and the provincial population, and might mutually exchange ideas as to the safest and most effective methods of encouraging progress within the limits of their jurisdictions. This was intended to be the embryo of representative institutions. But the governors, being officials
appointed by the Cabinet, did not bear in any 
Bronze Lantern from Korea and Candelabrum from Holland.
Near by stands the candelabrum presented by the King of Loochoo. Holland, Korea and Loochoo were in olden times considered Japan's three vassal states.
could it even be said that they reflected the public feeling of the districts they administered, for their habitual and natural tendency was to try, by means of heroic object lessons, to win the people's allegiance to the Government's progressive policy, rather than to convince the Government of the danger of overstepping the people's capacities.
These conventions of local officials had no legislative power whatever. The foundations of a body for discharging that function were laid in 1875, when a Senate (genro-in) was organised. It consisted of official nominees, and its duty was to discuss and revise all laws and ordinances prior to their promulgation. No power of initiative was vested in it. The credit of this body was impaired by the fact that expediency not less than a spirit of progress had evidently presided at its creation. Into its ranks had been drafted a number of men for whom no places could be found in the Executive, and who without some official employment would have been drawn into the current of disaffection. From that point of view the Senate soon came to be regarded as a kind of hospital for administrative invalids, though undoubtedly its discharge of quasi-legislative functions proved suggestive, useful, and instructive.
The assemblies of Governors and the Senate might have sufficiently occupied public attention for some years had not an event occurred which warned the Government to proceed more expeditiously. In the spring of 1878 the great Minister, Ōkubo Toshimitsu, was assassinated. Uniformly ready to bear the heaviest burden of responsibility in every political complication, Ōkubo had stood prominently before the nation as Saigo's opponent. He fell under the swords of Saigo's sympathisers. They immediately surrendered themselves to justice, having taken previous care to circulate a statement of motives, which showed that they ranked the Government's failure to establish representative institutions as a sin scarcely less heinous than its alleged abuses of power. Well-informed followers of Saigo could never have been sincere believers in representative institutions. These men belonged to a province far removed from the scene of Saigo's desperate struggle. But the broad fact that they had sealed with their life-blood an appeal for a political change, indicated the existence of a strong public conviction which would derive further strength from their act. The Government determined to accelerate its pace. It did not act under the influence of terror. The Japanese are essentially a brave people. Throughout the troublous events that preceded and followed the Restoration, it is not possible to point to one leader whose obedience to duty or to conviction was visibly weakened by prospects of personal peril. Ōkubo's assassination did not alarm any of his colleagues; but they understood its suggestiveness, and hastened to give effect to a previously formed resolve.
Two months after Ōkubo's death, an edict announced that elective assemblies should forthwith be established in the various prefectures and cities. These assemblies were to consist of members having a high property qualification, elected by voters having one half of that qualification; the voting to be by signed ballot, and the sessions to last for one month in the spring of each year. As to their functions, they were to determine the method of levying and spending local taxes, subject to approval by the Minister of State for Home Affairs; to scrutinise the accounts for the previous year, and, if necessary, to present petitions to the Central Government. Thus the foundations of genuine representative institutions were laid. It is true that legislative power was not vested in the local assemblies, but in all other important respects they discharged parliamentary duties. Their history need not be related at any length. Sometimes they came into violent collision with the Governor of the Prefecture, and unsightly struggles resulted. The Governors were disposed to advocate public works which the people considered extravagant, and further, as years went by and as political organisations grew stronger, there was found in each assembly a group of men ready to oppose the Governor simply because of his official status. But, on the whole, the system worked well. The local assemblies served as training schools for the future parliament, and their members showed devotion to public duty as well as considerable aptitude for debate.
This was not what Itagaki and his followers wanted. Their purpose was to overthrow the clique of clansmen who, holding the reins of administrative power, monopolised the prizes of officialdom. Towards the consummation of such an aim the local assemblies helped little. Itagaki redoubled his agitation. He organised his fellow-thinkers into an association called Jiyu-to (liberals), the first political party in Japan, to whose ranks there very soon gravitated several men who had been in office and resented the loss of it; many that had never been in office and desired to be; and a still greater number who sincerely believed in the principles of political liberty, but had not yet considered the possibility of immediately adapting such principles to Japan's case.
It was in the nature of things that an association of this kind, professing such doctrines, should present a picturesque aspect to the public, and that its collisions with the authorities should invite popular sympathy. Nor were collisions infrequent. For the Government, arguing that if the nation was not ready for representative institutions, neither was it ready for full freedom of speech or of public meeting, legislated consistently with that theory, and entrusted to the police considerable powers of control over the press and the platform. The exercise of these powers often created situations in which the Liberals were able to pose as victims of official tyranny, so that they grew in popularity and the contagion of political agitation spread.
Three years later (1881), another split occurred in the ranks of the ruling oligarchy. Ōkuma Shigenobu seceded from the administration, and was followed by a number of able men who had owed their appointments to his patronage, or who, during his tenure of office as Minister of Finance, had passed under the influence of his powerful personality. If Itagaki be called the Rousseau of Japan, Ōkuma may be regarded as the Peel. To remarkable financial ability and a lucid, vigorous judgment, he adds the faculty of placing himself on the crest of any wave that a genuine aura popularis has begun to swell. He too inscribed on his banner of revolt against the oligarchy the motto "Constitutional Government," and it might have been expected that his followers would join hands with those of Itagaki, since the avowed political purpose of both was identical. They did nothing of the kind. Ōkuma organised an independent party, calling themselves "Progressists" (Shimpo-to), who not only stood aloof from the Liberals but even assumed an attitude hostile to them. This fact is eloquent. It shows that Japan's first political parties were grouped, not about principles, but about persons. Hence an inevitable lack of cohesion among their elements and a constant tendency to break up into coteries. These are the characteristics that render so perplexing to a foreign student the story of political evolution in Japan. He looks for differences of platform and finds none. Just as a true liberal must be a progressist, and a true progressist a liberal, so, though each may cast his profession of faith in a mould of different phrases, the ultimate shape must be the same. The mainsprings of early political agitation in Japan were personal grievances and a desire to wrest the administrative power from the hands of statesmen who had held it so long as to overtax the patience of their rivals. He that searches for profound moral or ethical bases will be disappointed. There were no conservatives. Society was permeated with the spirit of progress. In a comparative sense the epithet "conservative" might have been applied to the statesmen who proposed to defer parliamentary institutions until the people, as distinguished from the former samurai, had been in some measure prepared for such an innovation. But since these very statesmen were the guiding spirits of the whole Meiji revolution, it was plain that their convictions must be radical, and that, unless they did violence to their record, they must finally lead the country to representative institutions, the logical sequel of their own reforms.
Ōkubo's assassination in 1878 had been followed by an edict announcing the establishment of local assemblies. Ōkuma's secession in 1881 was followed by an edict announcing that a national assembly would be convened ten years later. The formation of the Progressist Party, which included in its ranks many men of substance, social standing, and political importance, was an event too significant to be misinterpreted.
The political parties having now virtually attained their ostensible object, might have been expected to desist from farther agitation. They could not hope to hasten the advent of parliamentary institutions, since the date was definitely fixed, nor could they quarrel with the Government's constitutional principles, for of these no intimation had yet been given. But in truth the ultimate aim of their opposition was not the setting up of a parliament so much as the pulling down of the "clan statesmen." A national assembly commended itself to them mainly as a means to that end, and consequently, after securing the promise of a parliament, their next task was to excite anti-official prejudices among the future electors. They worked assiduously and they had an undisputed field, for no one was put forward to champion the Government's cause. Frank criticism has been directed against that singular forbearance on the part of the statesmen in power. It has been asserted that in order to ensure the smooth working of the parliamentary machine which they had promised to create, they should not have wholly abandoned to their enemies the political education of the constituencies. The apparent explanation is that, in the first place, they looked to be judged by their deeds solely, and left the task of talking to their adversaries; in the second, they contemplated a Cabinet independent of parliament and taking its mandate from the Emperor alone.
The campaign was not conducted always on lawful lines. There were plots to assassinate Ministers. There was an attempt to employ dynamite. There was a scheme to incite an insurrection in Korea. In justice to the Liberal and the Progressist leaders it must be stated that they never countenanced or condoned such acts. The extent of their fault was failure to control their followers. On the other hand, dispersals of political meetings by order of police-inspectors, and suspension or suppression of newspapers by the unchallengeable fiat of the Home Minister were frequent occurrences. So greatly indeed was public tranquillity threatened, that the Government found it necessary to issue an Ordinance empowering the police to banish doubtful characters from the capital without any form of trial, and even to arrest and detain them on suspicion. Thus the breach widened steadily. It is true that Ōkuma, the leader of the Progressists, rejoined the Cabinet for a time in 1887, but after a brief tenure of office he resigned under circumstances that aggravated his party's hostility to officialdom. In short, during the ten years immediately prior to the opening of the first parliament, an anti-Government propaganda was incessantly preached from the platform and in the press.
Meanwhile the statesmen in Tōkyō steadily pursued their path of progressive reform. They recast the Ministry, removing the Court nobles, appointing one of the young reformers (Itō Hirobumi) to the post of Premier, and organising the departments on the lines of a European government. They rehabilitated the nobility, creating five orders—prince, marquis, count, viscount, and baron,[1]—and granting patents to the men who had taken leading parts in the Restoration. They codified the civil and penal laws, remodelling them on Western bases. They brought a vast number of affairs within the scope of minute regulations. They rescued the finances from confusion and restored them to a sound condition. They recast the whole framework of local government. They organised a great national bank and established a network of subordinate institutions throughout the country. They pushed the work of railway construction and successfully enlisted private enterprise in its cause. They steadily extended the postal and telegraphic services. They economised public expenditures so that the State's income always exceeded its outlays. They laid the foundations of a strong mercantile marine. They instituted a system of postal savings-banks. They undertook large schemes of harbour improvement and road-making. They planned and put into operation an extensive programme of riparian improvement. They made civil-service appointments depend on competitive examination. They sent numbers of students to Europe and America to complete their studies; and by tactful, persevering diplomacy they gradually introduced a new tone into the Empire's relations with foreign Powers. Japan's affairs were never better administered.
In 1890 the Constitution was promulgated. Imposing ceremonies marked the event. All the nation's notables were summoned to the Palace to witness the delivery of the important document by the sovereign to the Prime Minister; salvoes of artillery were fired; the cities were illuminated and the people kept holiday.
This rejoicing was marked by an event which reminded the world that although Japan had put on so much that was foreign she had not put off much that was native. Nishino Buntaro, a youth barely out of his teens, repaired to the official residence of the Minister of State for Education, waited in an ante-room until the Minister was about to enter his carriage for the purpose of attending the ceremony of the Constitution's promulgation at the Palace, and approaching him as though to open a conversation, plunged a large knife into his abdomen. The man thus done to death was Viscount Mori, one of Japan's most enlightened and progressive statesmen. It appeared that when visiting the Shrine of Ise in the previous year, he had raised one of the sacred curtains with his cane, an act which presented itself to many Japanese in a sacrilegious light. It is certain that Viscount Mori did not intend to offer any slight whatever to the spirit worshipped at the shrine. What he did was done inadvertently and under fully extenuating circumstances. In a Western country brief newspaper comment would have been the limit of his punishment, and even that might have seemed excessive. But Japan was suffering at the time from an attack of hysterical loyalty, and the Shrine at Ise being dedicated to the progenitrix of the country's sovereigns, it seemed to Nishino Buntaro that when high officials began to touch the sacred paraphernalia with walking-sticks, the foundations of Imperialism were menaced. No obligation devolved on him to vindicate the majesty of the shrine. He had no more connection with it than a student at Oxford has with Westminster Abbey. But he had been reared in the bushi's creed that a duty indicated by conscience must be discharged at all costs or hazards. He fell under the swords of the Minister's official guards, and for years afterwards his tomb received the homage of that section of Japanese men and women who worship achievement in despite of obstacles without regard to the nature of the thing achieved.
The framing of the Constitution had been directed by Count (afterwards Marquis) Itō. He had visited the Occident for the purpose of investigating parliamentary institutions, studying their practical working and collecting from each whatever features seemed best adapted to the conditions existing in his own country. Ito Hirobumi's name is connected with nearly every great work of constructive statesmanship in the history of new Japan, and the crown of his legislative career was the drafting of the Constitution, a document conspicuously far-seeing in its occasional ambiguities, for it left time to interpret points which could not have been explicitly defined at the outset without provoking dangerous controversy. The Japanese point proudly to this Constitution as the only charter of its kind voluntarily given by a sovereign to his subjects. In other countries such concessions were always the outcome of long and often bloody struggles between ruler and ruled. In Japan the Emperor freely divested himself of a portion of his prerogatives and transferred them to the people. That view of the case, as will be perceived from the story told above, is not untinged with romance; but in a general sense it is true.
It will naturally occur to the reader of Japan's modern history to inquire what share the Emperor himself actually takes in the remarkable changes that signalise his reign. Japanese publicists refrain from discussing that question minutely. The nation wishes to believe that its sovereign exercises a directing influence, and the belief has a wholesome effect. In the opening years of Mutsuhito's reign, his youth necessarily disqualified him to employ the power with which he had been suddenly invested. But that from the first he evinced an intelligent interest in the stirring incidents of the era is affirmed by those best qualified to speak. Certain broad principles of national and international policy have always had His Majesty's earnest support, and it is more than probable that he would refuse his confidence to any Ministry avowedly deviating from them. But on the whole his active part in the administration of State affairs is probably smaller than that of the least autocratic sovereign in Europe. When an important question finds the country's leading statesmen in disagreement, it has become habitual that they should discuss it in the Mikado's presence and accept his verdict as final. But of course His Majesty decides, if not in accordance with the majority, then in favour of those whose views experience has taught him to trust. Preëminent among the latter is Marquis Itō. No other man in the Empire is so near the Throne, and the fact certainly constitutes a proof of His Majesty's sagacity. It may be added here that the financial position of the sovereign is very different now from what it was in the days when he lived a pensioner on the Shōgun's bounty. The civil list is three hundred thousand pounds sterling annually, and so skilful has been the management of the Imperial Estates Bureau—this, too, largely owing to Marquis Itō's contrivance—that His Majesty's funded property amounts to about four millions sterling, and he further owns large tracts of forest land which will one day possess great value. The demands upon his purse, however, are very heavy. He supports the whole of the princely families, including that of the Prince Imperial; he accompanies all patents of nobility with handsome sums; he makes liberal allowances to Cabinet Ministers by way of supplement to their salaries; he pays the honoraria that go with orders and medals; he gives large amounts to charitable purposes, many of which escape public attention altogether, and he devotes considerable sums to the encouragement of art. His own manner of life is simple and frugal, and it may truly be said that his record does not show one act unworthy of the reverence with which his subjects regard him.
The framers of the Constitution were of course careful not to make its provisions too liberal. They fixed the minimum age for electors and candidates at twenty-five, and the property qualification at a payment of direct taxes aggregating at least thirty shillings (fifteen yen) annually. A bi-cameral system was adopted for the Diet; the House of Peers (Kizoku-in) being in part hereditary, in part elective, and in part nominated by the sovereign;[2] the House of Representatives (Shūgi-in) consisting of three hundred elected members. Freedom of conscience, of speech, and of public meeting, inviolability of domicils and correspondence, security from arrest or punishment except by due process of law, permanence of judicial appointments, and all the other essential elements of religious liberty were guaranteed. In the Diet full legislative authority was vested: without its consent no tax could be imposed, increased, or remitted, nor could any public money be paid out except the salaries of officials (which the sovereign reserved the right to fix at will), and the annual budgets had to receive its endorsement. In the Emperor were vested the prerogatives of declaring war and making peace, of concluding treaties, of appointing and dismissing officials, of approving and promulgating laws, of issuing urgency ordinances to take the temporary place of laws, and of conferring titles of nobility.
No incident in Japan's modern career seemed more hazardous than this sudden plunge into parliamentary institutions. There had been some preparation. Provincial assemblies had partially familiarised the people with the methods of deliberative bodies. But provincial assemblies were at best petty arenas,—places where the making or mending of roads and the policing and scavenging of villages came up for discussion, and where political parties exercised no legislative function nor found any opportunity to attack the Government or to debate problems of national interest. Thus the convening of a Diet and the sudden transfer of financial and legislative authority from the Throne and its entourage of tried statesmen to the hands of men whose qualifications for public life rested on the verdict of electors themselves apparently devoid of all right to guide their choice,—this sweeping innovation seemed likely to tax severely, if not to over-tax completely, the progressive capacities of the nation.
Some reassurance was derived from closer inspection of the election law. It then appeared that, owing to the various restrictions imposed, only four hundred and sixty thousand persons would be enfranchised out of a nation of forty-three millions. Yet against that discovery had to be set the certainty that the new constituencies must consist chiefly of farmers, manufacturers, and merchants. A parliament of samurai would have appeared reasonable and natural, inasmuch as administrative and executive duties had been discharged by samurai for many centuries, and such a parliament it was that the chief advocates of representative government originally had in view. But the times had dealt harshly with the samurai. Although wholly without business experience, many of them had not hesitated to risk in commercial or industrial enterprises the entire sums received in commutation of their pensions, and the result had been disastrous in almost every case. It was well understood, therefore, that the property qualification imposed by the election law would exclude the great bulk of the former samurai from the lists of voters or candidates; and such indeed proved to be the case, for among the three hundred members of the first House of Representatives only one hundred and ten were found to belong to that class.[3] In short, legislative power was entrusted to men who had never, since the foundation of the Empire, enjoyed such a privilege nor had ever been thought fit to enjoy it. Thus the reflecting section of the nation appreciated and approved the limitations provided by the election law, and would even have had them stricter were that possible. But of course that view was not taken by political agitators. The sequence of events may be interrupted here so far as to say that the Lower House at once set itself to introduce measures for the extension of the franchise, and was uniformly opposed by the House of Peers, which in this matter, as in all others, showed itself strongly opposed to radical tendencies. After a struggle lasting nearly ten years, the Government, judging that the time had come for further concessions, introduced a bill lowering the tax qualification to ten yen for electors, dispensing with it altogether in the case of candidates, providing for secret ballots, extending the limits of electoral districts so as to embrace whole prefectures, and increasing the membership of the Lower House to three hundred and sixty-three. Under this system the number of franchise-holders was raised to eight hundred thousand approximately, and a fairer, though still not fully just, measure of representation was secured for the urban populations.
What enhanced the interest of the situation on the eve of the Diet's first assembly was that the oligarchal holders of administrative power had made no attempt whatever to win for themselves a following in the political field. They knew that the opening of the parliament would unmuzzle the agitators whose mouths had hitherto been partially closed by police restrictions, but who would now enjoy complete immunity within the walls of the assembly, whatever the nature of their utterances. Yet the statesmen of the day stood severely aloof from alliances of every kind, and continued to discharge their administrative functions with apparent indifference to the changes that popular representation could not fail to bring. That somewhat inexplicable display of unconcern became partially intelligible when the Constitution was carefully examined, for it then appeared that the Cabinet's tenure of office might be made to depend solely on the Emperor's will, that Ministers could take their mandate from the Throne, not from parliament. This fact was merely an outcome of the theory underlying every part of the Japanese polity. Laws might be redrafted, institutions remodelled, systems recast, but amid all changes and mutations one steady point must be carefully preserved, the Throne. The makers of new Japan understood that so long as the sanctity and inviolability of the Imperial Prerogatives could be preserved, the nation would be held by a strong anchor from drifting into dangerous waters. They laboured under no misapprehension about the inevitable issue of their work in framing the Constitution. They knew very well that party cabinets are an essential outcome of representative institutions, and that to some kind of party cabinets Japan must come. But they regarded the Imperial mandate as a conservative safeguard, pending the organisation and education of parties competent to form cabinets. Such parties did not yet exist, and until they came into unequivocal existence, the Restoration statesmen, who had so successfully managed the affairs of the nation during a quarter of a century, resolved that the steady point furnished by the Throne must be maintained, and that their own duty was to refrain from identifying themselves with any political association. With much sagacity they had framed the Constitution so as to serve the purposes of a period of probation. For the document neither admitted nor denied the principle of parliamentary mandates; and since the sovereign, being the source of all power, must be supposed to retain every prerogative of which he had not explicitly divested himself, while, on the other hand, any prerogative not definitely reserved might in the end be tacitly abandoned, it appeared that the Constitution was admirably adapted both for saving and for surrendering the situation.
It need scarcely be related that the agitators found in this ambiguity a new platform. They had obtained a Constitution and a Diet, but they had not obtained an instrument for pulling down the "Clan Government" (hambatsu-seifu) since it stood secure from attack under the ægis of the sovereign's mandate. Yet to pull down that Government had been the true purpose of their agitation from the outset, and they now saw themselves threatened with failure. They dared not raise their voices against any reservation of the Emperor's prerogatives. The nation would not have suffered such a protest, nor could the agitators themselves have found heart to clamour for more at the very moment when the Throne had given so much. The only resource was to read their own interpretation into the text of the Constitution, and to demonstrate practically that a cabinet not acknowledging responsibility to the legislature is virtually impotent for law-making and even for administrative purposes.
Such are the broad outlines of the contest that began in the first session of the Diet and continued for several years. The special points of controversy need not be mentioned in detail. Just as the political parties had been formed on the lines of persons, not principles, so the opposition in the Diet was directed against men, not measures. The struggle presented varying aspects at different times, but the fundamental question at issue never changed. Obstruction was the weapon of the political parties. They sought to render legislation and finance impossible for any Ministry that refused to take its mandate from the majority in the Lower House, and they imparted an air of responsibility and even patriotism to their destructive campaign by making "anti-clanism" their warcry, and industriously fostering the idea that the struggle lay between administration guided by public opinion and administration controlled by a clique of clansmen who separated the Throne from the nation. Had not the House of Peers stood stanchly by the Government throughout this contest, it is possible that the nation might have suffered severely from the rashness of the political parties.
There was something melancholy in the spectacle. The Restoration statesmen were the men that had made modern Japan; the men that had raised her, in the face of immense obstacles, from the position of an insignificant Oriental State to that of a formidable unit in the comity of nations; the men, finally, that had given to her a Constitution and representative institutions. Yet these same men were now fiercely attacked by the arms they had themselves nerved; were held up to public obloquy as self-seeking usurpers, and were declared to be impeding the people's constitutional route to administrative privileges, when in reality they were only holding the breach until the people should be able to march into the citadel with some show of orderly and competent organisation. That there was no corruption, no abuse of position, no clinging to office for the sake of office, is not to be pretended; but, on the whole, the conservatism of the "Clan Statesmen" had for main object to provide that the newly constructed representative machine should not be set working until its parts were duly adjusted and brought into proper gear. On both sides the leaders understood the situation accurately. The heads of the political parties, while publicly clamouring for parliamentary cabinets, privately confessed that they were not yet prepared to assume administrative responsibilities. In fact, neither the Liberals nor the Progressists—to say nothing of the other five or six coteries into which the Lower House was divided—had a working majority, nor could the ranks of either have furnished men qualified in public estimation to fill all the administrative posts. The so-called "Clan Statesmen," on the other hand, while refusing before the world to accept the Diet's mandates, admitted within official circles that the question was one of time only.
The political situation did not undergo any marked change until, under circumstances which will presently be described, the country became engaged in war with China (1894–1895), when domestic squabbles were forgotten in the presence of foreign danger. An era of coalition then commenced. Both of the great political parties united to vote funds for the prosecution of the campaign, and one of them, the Liberals, subsequently supported a Cabinet under Marquis Itō, and assisted materially to carry through the Diet an extensive programme, conceived in the sequel of the war, for expanding the national armaments and carrying out various public works. The Progressists, however, remained implacable. They continued their opposition frankly for the sake of opposition and without any pretence of consideration for the nature of the measures they opposed, their steadfast contention being that the clan Government was unworthy of confidence. The Liberals, too, ultimately found themselves unable to support the Itō Ministry in certain taxation measures which, though a logical consequence of the post-bellum programme voted by them in 1896, might have injured their popularity with the Constituencies.
It now became obvious that the only hope for the political parties consisted in union. A fusion was therefore effected in 1898, the new organisation adopting the name "Constitutional Party" (Kensei-tō). By this reconstruction, effected with great difficulty and presenting few features of stability, the immediate obstacles to parliamentary cabinets were removed. Not only did the "Constitutionalists" command a large majority in the Lower House, but they also possessed a sufficiency of men who, although lacking ministerial experience, might still advance a reasonable title to be entrusted with portfolios. Immediately the Emperor, acting on the advice of Marquis Itō, invited Counts Ōkuma and Itagaki to form a Cabinet. It was essentially a trial. The party politicians were required to demonstrate in practice the justice of the claim they had been so long asserting in theory. They had worked in combination for the destructive purpose of pulling down the so-called "Clan Statesmen;" they had now to show whether they could work in combination for the constructive purpose of administration. Their heads, Counts Ōkuma and Itagaki, accepted the Imperial mandate, and the nation watched the result. There was no need to wait long. In less than six months these new links snapped under the tension of old enmities, and the coalition split up once more into its original elements. It had demonstrated an unexpected proposition, namely, that the sweets of office which the "Clan Statesmen" had been so vehemently accused of coveting, possessed even greater attractions for their accusers, who during their six months of power seemed to have been largely occupied either in devising new posts or disputing for the tenure of those already existing. The issue of the experiment was such a palpable fiasco that it effectually rehabilitated the "Clan Statesmen," and finally proved, what had indeed been long evident to every close observer, that without their assistance no political party could hold office successfully.
In connection with this incident there appeared prominently upon the political scene a remarkable figure. Mr. Hoshi Tōru had been among the leaders of the Liberals from the time of their organisation, but had accepted the office of Japanese Representative in Washington during the period of his party's coalition with the Itō Cabinet. He possessed many of the qualities generally supposed to make for greatness, eminent among them being unflinching pursuit of purpose, insatiable ambition, and unscrupulousness in choice of means or agents. Much of the vehemence that characterised the Liberals' hostility to the Progressists had been derived from his fierce invective and restless implacability, and since his own route to a supreme place would be sensibly lengthened by the fusion of his party with another body of almost equal strength and containing in its ranks many men who regarded him with feelings of bitter hostility, he hastened back to Japan, bent upon dissolving a union so inimical to his personal interests. The success that attended his disruptive efforts and the dexterity he showed in applying them greatly enhanced his reputation, so that, after the fall of the ŌkumaItagaki Cabinet and the resolution of the Constitutionalists into their original elements, the nation recognised in Mr. Hoshi Tōru the man of the hour. It soon appeared, however, that, whether by natural inclination or as the result of observations made during his residence in America, he had become a practical believer in the methods of the "Tammany-Hall boss." There is an old and still undecided controversy among foreign observers as to bribery in Japan. Many Japanese romancists introduce the douceur in their plots as though it had a natural place in every drama of life, and historical annals show that from the seventeenth century downward Japanese rulers legislated against bribery with a degree of strenuous persistence which seems to imply conviction of its prevalence. Not only were recipients of bribes severely punished, but informers also received twice the amount in question. Japanese social relations, too, are maintained largely by the giving and taking of presents. Visits to make or to renew an acquaintance are always accompanied by gifts; the four seasons of the year are similarly marked; even deaths call for a contribution to funeral expenses; nearly all services are "recognised," and guests carry back from their entertainer's house a box of confectionery or other edibles in order that their households may not be entirely excluded from the feast. The uses of such a system evidently verge constantly on abuses, and prepare the observer to find that if the normal intercourse of life sanctions these material aids, abnormal occasions are likely to demand them in much greater profusion. All evidence thus far obtained goes to prove that Japanese officials of the highest and lowest classes are incorruptible, but that the middle ranks are unsound. A Japanese police constable will never take a bribe nor a Japanese railway employé a pour-boire, and from Ministers of State to chiefs of departmental bureaux there is virtual freedom from corruption. But for the rest nothing can be claimed, and to the case of tradespeople, inferior agents, foremen of works, contractors, and so on, the Japanese proverb may probably be applied that "even hell's penalties are a matter of money." At moments when the conflict between the Ministry and the Diet was sharp, and when such weapons as suspension, prorogation, or even dissolution could not turn the scale in the former's favour, Walpolian methods were certainly employed by the men in power, though so dexterously as to defy accurate estimate. But as such abuses provoked vehement remonstrance and condemnation, it was possible to regard them as occasional rather than chronic. From the time of Mr. Hoshi Tōru's ascendency, however, a creed prevailed that political influence was a valuable asset which its possessor might turn to his own profit provided that public loss did not evidently ensue. This dangerous doctrine soon exercised a widely demoralising influence. Nearly every service came to be considered purchasable, and in many instances the reservation as to public interest received no respect whatever.
The disruption of the Constitutional Party after a ludicrously brief period of cohesion showed that the Liberals and the Progressists could never hope to work together, and as events had already proved that neither of them was competent to undertake the administration alone, it thenceforth became the unique aim of both alike to join hands with the "Clan Statesmen," towards whom they had originally displayed such implacable hostility. Marquis Itō received special solicitations, since he would bring to any political party a vast accession of strength, not only in his own person and in the number of friends and disciples certain to follow him, but also in the confidence of the Emperor, which he possessed above all the statesmen of the era. But Marquis Itō declined to be absorbed into any existing party or to adopt the principle of parliamentary cabinets. He was willing to form a new association, but he stipulated that it must consist of men sufficiently disciplined to obey him implicitly and sufficiently docile to accept their programme from his hands. To the surprise of the nation the Liberals agreed to these terms. They dissolved their Party, and enrolled themselves under Marquis Itō in the ranks of a new organisation which did not even call itself a "party,"—its designation being Rikken Seiyu-kai (Association of friends of the Constitution),—and which had for the cardinal plank in its platform a declaration of ministerial irresponsibility to the Diet. A singular page was thus added to the story of Japanese political development; for not merely did the Liberals enlist under the banner of the statesmen whom for twenty years they had fought to overthrow, but they also erased from their profession of faith its essential article, parliamentary cabinets, and by resigning that article to the Progressists, created for the first time an opposition with a solid and intelligible platform. The whole incident vividly illustrated the fact that persons, not principles, were the bases of political combinations in Japan. Marquis Itō's attraction alone gave cohesion to the Rikken Seiyu-kai. It is true that Mr. Hoshi Tōru, who had become the effective head of the Liberals before they struck their colours to Marquis Itō, treated the latter's disavowal of party cabinets as a mere verbal concession to conservative opinion, and assured his fellow-members that such talk need not distress them. But every one felt that so long as Marquiō Ito lived, the principle he denounced could not be openly re-espoused by the Seiyu-kai.
Regarded superficially, the political situation now seemed to have lost its embarrassing features. The new association commanded an overwhelming majority in the Lower House, and comprised a group of statesmen fully competent to carry on the administration. But between the Seiyu-kai and the opposition under Count Ōkuma there remained a group of men who preserved their antipathy to political parties in any form, and resented Marquis Itō's apparent desertion of his former comrades. At the head of these malcontents stood Field Marshal Marquis Yamagata, who as a statesman possessed the nation's respect, and as the Commander of Japan's forces in the war with China had established a title to his country's gratitude. Yet, even under such a leader, this middle party could scarcely have exercised much influence had it not possessed the sympathy of the House of Peers. The Upper Chamber having steadily supported the "Clan Statesmen" in their long struggle with the Lower, and now seeing the leader of those statesmen enter the camp of his old opponents, considered itself slighted, and longed for an opportunity to assert the power which Marquis Itō apparently did not credit it with possessing. It is certain, too, that Mr. Hoshi Tōru's prominent position in the Seiyu-kai added to the animosity of the Peers. They regarded the man and his methods with aversion neither wholly just nor wholly unjustifiable. The desired opportunity soon came. Marquis Itō's Cabinet, having introduced an important financial measure in the Lower House and secured its passage, found the path suddenly blocked by the Peers. Recourse to the Emperor's intervention removed the obstruction for the moment, but it became at once plain that the Seiyu-kai did not control the political situation, and could not remain in power without complications scarcely less troublesome than those that had disfigured the opening days of parliamentary government. That was not what Marquis Itō had contemplated when he placed himself at the head of the new association. He seized the first occasion to resign, and once more a Ministry was formed by men unconnected with any political party.
When the outlines of this long struggle are examined, they assume the form of a series of experiments. Each of the disputants in turn has been suffered to put his theories to the test of practical experience. Government by the united "Clan Statesmen" independently of political parties has been tried; government by the "Clan Statesmen" in coalition with a party has been tried; government by the combined parties independently of the "Clan Statesmen" has been tried; government by a party in combination with a section of the "Clan Statesmen" has been tried; and government by a section of the "Clan Statesmen" independently of the other section as well as of political parties is being tried at the moment of writing this history. The variations may be said to have been exhausted. When the present and last essay has failed—for fail it must—the Seiyu-kai will re-enter the lists to remain in undisturbed possession of them for some time. Victory rests with the "Clan Statesmen." It is evident that during their lifetime the principle of parliamentary cabinets will never be openly acknowledged as constitutional. But it is equally evident that that principle has already received practical recognition. When the overshadowing figures of the great Restoration leaders shall have passed from the scene, the logic of facts will become too strong for those that inherit their doctrine.
The most unfortunate result of parliamentary government in Japan during the first ten years of trial was an increase of corrupt practices. Perhaps it would be juster to say that the Japanese, in common with other peoples, did not escape demoralisation by the opportunities incidental to a representative system. Members of the Diet sold their votes to the Government and their influence to promoters of speculative undertakings, and society in general descended to a lower moral plane. One vehement and sanguinary protest against this temporary decadence was made by Iba Sōtaro. He repaired to the office of the Tōkyō municipality and stabbed to death Mr. Hoshi Tōru, the reputed promoter of corrupt practices, as he sat among his fellow-councillors. Iba was fifty years of age. He had achieved a reputable and useful career in various important positions. Leaving a comfortable home, a wife and children whom he loved, and duties which he discharged with credit and profit, he paid farewell visits to his friends, wrote to the press a statement of reasons, and then calmly proceeded to kill Hoshi because he regarded him as the worst political influence of the time. Japanese annals abound with Iba Sōtaros, though perhaps in no other case has a contrast so dramatically vivid been shown between the motives of a murderous act and the sacrifices it entailed. In justice to the memory of Hoshi Tōru it should be stated that, pernicious as his influence had certainly been, he did not die a rich man. He does not appear to have coveted money for himself, but rather for its uses in promoting political designs.
As to parliamentary procedure in Japan, it would of course have been extravagant to expect that neither tumult nor intemperance would disfigure the first debates of a Diet whose members were wholly without experience, but not without grievances to ventilate and wrongs, real or fancied, to redress, or that the language employed would always show the restraints which custom has gradually imposed in Western parliaments. Noisy scenes sometimes occurred, the authority of the chair often proved ineffective, and expressions were occasionally used such as are not tolerable in polite society. But on the whole there was remarkable absence of anything like disgraceful licence. The politeness, the good temper, and the sense of dignity which characterise the Japanese in general, saved the situation when it threatened to degenerate into a "scene." Foreigners entering the House of Representatives in Tōkyō for the first time might easily misinterpret some of its habits. A number distinguishes each member. It is painted in white on a wooden indicator, the latter being fastened by a hinge to the face of the member's desk. When present, he sets the indicator standing upright, and lowers it when leaving the House. Permission to speak is not obtained by catching the President's eye, but by calling out the aspirant's number, and as members often emphasise their calls by hammering their desks with the indicators, there are moments of clatter and din. But, for the rest, orderliness and decorum habitually prevail. Speeches have to be made from a rostrum, which rule tends palpably to deter useless declamation. The Japanese formulates his views with remarkable facility. He is absolutely free from gaucherie or self-consciousness when speaking in public. He can think on his feet. But his mind has never busied itself much with abstract ideas and subtleties of philosophical or religious thought. Flights of fancy, impassioned bursts of sentiment, appeals to the heart rather than to the reason of an audience, are devices strange to his mental habit. He can be rhetorical, but he very seldom climbs to any height of eloquence. Among all the speeches hitherto delivered in the Japanese Diet, it would be difficult to find a passage deserving the latter epithet. Another notable point is that oratory has gradually gone out of fashion. Members no longer care to talk as they did when the Assembly was in its infancy. In some cases there are special reasons for this. Agitators who figured as impecunious declaimers in the first session are now sober men of substance. They have found parliament a paying and a pacifying occupation. But the general explanation is that the Diet's method of procedure tends to discourage oratorical displays. Each measure of importance has to be submitted to a committee, and not until the latter's report has been received does serious debate take place. But in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred the committee's report determines the attitude of the House, and speeches are felt to be more or less superfluous. One result of this system is that business is done with a degree of celerity scarcely known in Occidental legislatures. For example, the meetings of the House of Representatives during the session 1896—1897 were thirty-two, and the number of hours occupied by the sittings aggregated a hundred and sixteen. Yet the result was fifty-five bills debated and passed, several of them measures of prime importance, as the gold-standard bill, the budget, and a statutory tariff law. Such a record seems difficult to reconcile with any idea of careful legislation; but it must be remembered that although actual sittings of the houses are comparatively few and brief, the committees remain almost constantly at work from morning to evening throughout the twelve weeks of the session's duration.
From the outset the debates were recorded verbatim. Years before the date fixed for the promulgation of the Constitution, a little band of students elaborated a system of stenography and adapted it to the Japanese syllabary. Their labours remained almost without recognition or remuneration until the Diet was on the eve of meeting, when it was discovered that a competent staff of short-hand reporters could be organised at an hour's notice. Japan can thus boast that, alone among the countries of the world, she possesses an exact record of the proceedings of her Diet from the moment when the first word was spoken within its walls.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 26.
Note 26.—In former times titles did not exist. There were official ranks, and very often these were prefixed to a name in the manner of a title. But actual titles were not introduced until 1885. In the interval separating the latter date from the fall of feudalism in 1871, the former territorial chiefs and Court nobles could not be titularly distinguished from commoners. But in 1885, the Emperor, acting on the advice of Itō (afterwards Marquis), instituted five orders of nobility (apart from Princes of the Blood), namely, Princes, Marquises, Counts, Viscounts, and Barons. These, of course, are translations. The Japanese terms—affixed, not prefixed, to a name—are ki, kō, haku, shi, dan. The greatest of the territorial nobles received the title of prince; the smallest, that of baron. The practice was also inaugurated of bestowing titles on men of merit without regard to their original social status. There are no life titles. The Princes now number 11; the Marquises 33; the Counts 89; the Viscounts 363, and the Barons 280.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 27.
Note 27.—Princes and Marquises sit by right of their titles; Counts, Viscounts, and Barons are elected by their respective orders; each prefecture returns one member representing the highest tax-payers, and the Emperor nominates men of learning or public merit. The House of Peers now contains 319 members. A salary of 2,000 yen (£200) annually is paid to the members of the Diet; each House has a President, nominated by the sovereign from among three names selected by the House. He receives 4,000 yen a year. The Vice-President is elected by the House independently of Imperial nomination, and receives 3,000 yen annually. Members of the Lower House are elected for four years; those of the Upper for seven.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 28.
Note 28.—The House contained 129 farmers, 19 merchants, and 1 manufacturer. In the sixth session the number of samurai fell to 79, the farmers increased to 134, and the merchants to 24.